Professor wants to observe illegal assisted suicides

Canada’s university professors are preparing to defend the right of a
Metro Vancouver researcher to witness illegal assisted suicides in the
name of increasing understanding of the right-to-die movement.

By Vancouver SunJuly 3, 2008

Canada’s university professors are preparing to defend the right of a Metro Vancouver researcher to witness illegal assisted suicides in the name of increasing understanding of the right-to-die movement.

The Canadian Association of University Teachers (CAUT) has formed a high-level committee to investigate claims that Kwantlen Polytechnic University sociologist Russel Ogden was unjustly denied the chance to research new techniques for assisted suicide.

“In the face of it, it looks as if there has been a violation of academic freedom,” James Turk, executive director of the CAUT, said Wednesday in an interview from Ottawa.

The CAUT has formed what Turk call a “blue-ribbon committee” to look into why the Kwantlen administration is effectively blocking Ogden from researching assisted suicides, even after the university-college’s ethics committee approved his research three years ago.

For more than 14 years, Ogden has engaged in controversial and ground-breaking research into scores of underground assisted suicides (often known as “Nu Tech deathing”) by people dealing with AIDS, cancer and other terminal illnesses.

Ogden has frequently run into opposition from university administrators who fear their institutions could wind up in trouble for allowing him to possibly skirt the edges of the law.

In 2003, Ogden was awarded $143,000 in damages after it was determined that Britain’s Exeter University had illicitly backed out of an agreement to protect the identities of scores of people Ogden found had taken part in illegal assisted suicides.

More recently, Ogden has discovered that more than 19 British Columbians have committed suicide through an increasingly widespread technique known as “helium in a bag.”

Helium is seen as a swift, highly lethal and painless way to die without involving physicians or drugs. Helium is also nearly undetectable in toxicological probes.

The latest confrontation over Ogden’s pioneering research techniques has arisen at the same time that assisted suicide has become big news in Washington state. Former Democratic governor Booth Gardner, who struggles with Parkinson’s disease, is campaigning for a November ballot initiative on doctor-assisted euthanasia, which will go ahead if state supporters gather 225,000 signatures by today.

However, the CAUT worries that Ogden is being blocked from continuing legitimate research into the right-to-die movement by Kwantlen officials.

Despite receiving earlier ethics board approval, Ogden has since been told by Kwantlen’s administration he cannot “engage in any illegal activity, including attending at an assisted death,” says a CAUT letter written by Turk, which was addressed to eight academics and administrators. A copy was obtained by The Vancouver Sun.

Neither Ogden nor Kwantlen University officials were available for comment Wednesday.

The CAUT’s Turk maintains that, although assisted suicide is illegal in Canada (unlike in the state of Oregon, as well as the countries of Switzerland, Belgium and the Netherlands), it is neither illegal to commit suicide nor against the law to witness an assisted death in this country.

“Witnessing an illegal act, such as a husband murdering his wife, is not illegal behaviour on your part,” Turk said.

Therefore, Turk said, it would not be illegal for Ogden to witness an assisted suicide, since he would be neither discouraging nor encouraging it.

It’s important, Turk said, for academic researchers to be given the freedom to try to “understand politically unpopular behaviour.” Even while a Canwest poll last year showed three-quarters of Canadians approve of assisted suicide, compared to 48 per cent of Americans, Turk said researchers like Ogden are being held back by university administrators “who might think the [federal] government is going to get mad at them.”

The high-level CAUT committee that will review Ogden’s case and issue its findings in a few months includes Kevin Haggerty, a sociologist at the University of Alberta; John McLaren, professor emeritus of law at the University of Victoria; and Lorraine Weir, an English professor at the University of B.C.

Story Tools

We encourage all readers to share their views on our articles and blog posts. We are committed to maintaining a lively but civil forum for discussion, so we ask you to avoid personal attacks, and please keep your comments relevant and respectful. If you encounter a comment that is abusive, click the "X" in the upper right corner of the comment box to report spam or abuse. We are using Facebook commenting. Visit our FAQ page for more information.